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Understanding the Objective

It's often taken for granted by pundits and policy wonks that clean energy innovation and economic development are desirable goals, supported across party lines. But are those goals in fact supported on a bipartisan basis?

The best mix of taxes, subsidies and performance standards won't help until we all agree that clean energy innovation is the goal.

Well, no, of course not. As a matter of fact, Republicans in Congress have opposed all efforts to put a price on climate pollution, which would create domestic demand for clean energy. They have fought to preserve subsidies to fossil fuel industries, which skew the playing field against new market entrants. They have cut funding for clean energy. (Stretching back to Reagan cutting Carter's renewable research and development budget by 85 percent.)

Even in the minority, Congressional Republicans managed to battle back every clean energy policy proposed in the 111th Congress save a feeble one-year extension of the renewable tax credits. Newly elected Republican governors from New Mexico to New Jersey are already busy rolling back state-level clean energy policies. Just last week, the head of the Chamber of Commerce's energy project -- and the national Chamber is, for all intents and purposes, an adjunct of the Republican Party -- came out against R&D spending on clean energy. So much for "post-partisan."

The fact is most of today's Republican officeholders do not believe that boosting America's clean energy industries is a worthy goal, certainly not a goal that justifies spending real money or curtailing the privileges of energy incumbents. That, not some quandary about the best mix of taxes, subsidies and performance standards, is the primary barrier to public policy support for rapid growth of clean energy industries in the United States.

It's perfectly understandable to want to believe otherwise. The fights over climate change science and cap-and-trade have gotten vicious and exhausting. Folks of a pragmatic bent, who don't care for pitched partisan battle, obviously blanch at the prospect of another round. But the Republican establishment (along with a large block of conservative Democrats) simply doesn't acknowledge the environmental and economic need for competitive domestic clean energy industries. Until that changes -- until there is a genuine national consensus on the public policy imperative -- we'll continue our current course, nibbling ineffectually around the edges while China widens its lead.